Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
MJ Cutts, Set Designer, on r/starwarsunlimited (HMW: Cham Syndulla):
Cham Syndulla, Hammer of Ryloth:
Thematically, I've mentioned having some smaller, 'subtheme homeworlds' in this set; it's probably unsurprising to see that Ryloth is one of them. As a fun poke forward (if Tyler's little spoiler season puzzle article didn't already have it), a card coming soon has the text "if attached unit is a twi'lek" lol. Also, isn't it refreshing to get lots of new characters as leaders? I try to aim for at least 40% new characters as leaders on sets most days, which gets harder every year but hey I try!
Mechanically, there's a long story behind this leader. To try and keep it short, original versions of this set had a dichotomy between Heroic and Villainous mechanics. On the Villainous side, players would build Fortifications--at the time 'outposts'--as they tried to spread their corruption across the galaxy. As a Heroic mirror to that evil, industrial sort of building, there was a mechanic called Incite, by which you could exhaust lots of friendly units for value. The idea was that Villains built physical infrastructure, whereas Heroes were most interested in social infrastructure and networks of people instead.
Over testing we found Incite to be kinda boring and solitaire-y, and so I replaced it with a new keyword for Heroic units called Retaliate, which was just a keyword that meant "this ability happens when this unit is dealt damage and survives." The theme being, ofc, these alien cultures fighting back once antagonized. For complexity reasons for the set writ-large, Retaliate was phased out during development as well, but unlike Incite I think it could return one day. Some last remnants of these old mechanics can be found on this Cham Syndulla leader. In the future, when you see HMW units caring about damaging themselves, try to imagine them having Retaliate in that text box, and then go back even further: try to imagine if all those effects were actually exhausting friendly units for value instead.
#starwarsunlimited
MJ Cutts, Set Designer, on r/starwarsunlimited (HMW: Cham Syndulla):
Cham Syndulla, Hammer of Ryloth:
Thematically, I've mentioned having some smaller, 'subtheme homeworlds' in this set; it's probably unsurprising to see that Ryloth is one of them. As a fun poke forward (if Tyler's little spoiler season puzzle article didn't already have it), a card coming soon has the text "if attached unit is a twi'lek" lol. Also, isn't it refreshing to get lots of new characters as leaders? I try to aim for at least 40% new characters as leaders on sets most days, which gets harder every year but hey I try!
Mechanically, there's a long story behind this leader. To try and keep it short, original versions of this set had a dichotomy between Heroic and Villainous mechanics. On the Villainous side, players would build Fortifications--at the time 'outposts'--as they tried to spread their corruption across the galaxy. As a Heroic mirror to that evil, industrial sort of building, there was a mechanic called Incite, by which you could exhaust lots of friendly units for value. The idea was that Villains built physical infrastructure, whereas Heroes were most interested in social infrastructure and networks of people instead.
Over testing we found Incite to be kinda boring and solitaire-y, and so I replaced it with a new keyword for Heroic units called Retaliate, which was just a keyword that meant "this ability happens when this unit is dealt damage and survives." The theme being, ofc, these alien cultures fighting back once antagonized. For complexity reasons for the set writ-large, Retaliate was phased out during development as well, but unlike Incite I think it could return one day. Some last remnants of these old mechanics can be found on this Cham Syndulla leader. In the future, when you see HMW units caring about damaging themselves, try to imagine them having Retaliate in that text box, and then go back even further: try to imagine if all those effects were actually exhausting friendly units for value instead.
#starwarsunlimited
